President Emmanuel Macron reappointed Sebastien Lecornu to be France’s prime minister, giving the centrist ally another shot at naming a new Cabinet and getting a budget through a fractious parliament.

Lecornu must propose a 2026 budget on Monday in order to get the legislation adopted by the end of the year through the normal process. Otherwise, the National Assembly may need to pass an emergency bill to keep the government funded.

The reappointment is a last-gasp attempt to find political balance to prevent the next government from collapsing, which would likely make snap elections unavoidable and usher in a new period of political instability.

"We must put an end to this political crisis, which is exasperating the French people, and to this instability, which is detrimental to France’s image and its interests,” Lecornu said in a statement on social media late Friday.

Failure to form a cabinet and pass a budget would mean that Macron would either have to call a parliamentary election, pick yet another prime minister or resign — something he’s previously rejected.

Lecornu’s reappointment — which he said he accepted "out of duty” — follows a week of frenetic horse trading in Paris after he unexpectedly quit as prime minister on Monday, blaming the intransigence of the political groups in the National Assembly. The resignation came less than 24 hours after Macron named a new cabinet stacked with centrist loyalists, ignoring threats from opposition parties who warned him not to appoint a continuity government.

The renamed premier faces a treacherous path since the lower house of parliament is split among deeply antagonistic blocs. All parties have an incentive to position themselves for a crucial presidential election due in 2027, rather than make compromises.

"All ambitions are legitimate and useful, but those who join the government should pledge to disconnect from ambitions for the 2027 presidential election,” Lecornu said.

To have any chance of political stability, Lecornu must strike accords encompassing both the center-right Republicans who joined previous cabinets, and the center-left Socialists who until now have refused. The opposition between those parties defined French politics for decades before Macron and his centrist movement, and it remains hard to piece the two together.

To navigate the challenges, Macron has given Lecornu "carte blanche,” according to a presidential adviser.

The premier also needs to keep the support of what remains of a centrist bloc that was hobbled in Macron’s ill-fated gamble on snap elections last year. Meanwhile, the far-left and Marine Le Pen’s far right have said in recent days they will seek to topple any cabinet that emerges to precipitate elections.

Jordan Bardella, the leader of Le Pen’s far-right National Rally, wrote on social media after the announcement that reappointing Lecornu is a "bad joke” and a "humiliation” for the French people.”

"The National Rally will of course immediately censure this team without any future, whose sole raison d’eter is the fear of dissolution, that is, of the people,” Bardella said.

With no majority in parliament for the last year, ministers have struggled to deal with budget setbacks that have left France with the largest deficit in the euro area. The cocktail of political and fiscal risks has spooked investors, triggering selloffs in French assets and driving up borrowing costs.

The spread between the 10-year yield of French and German bonds — a key gauge of risk — has risen to more than 80 basis points from as low as 65 in August and 43 before Macron called elections in 2024.

In the short term, Lecornu’s top priority is to propose a 2026 budget to parliament in order to allow for the 70 days of deliberation enshrined in the French constitution.

If the normal budget process is derailed, France could use emergency legislation in January to avoid a shutdown, but the longer term consequences of such a move are unclear. Political aides were also sending notes on Friday on ways to pass parts of the budget more rapidly and other possible workarounds.

Lecornu earlier warned that failure to adopt a budget would push the deficit back out to around 6% of economic output in 2026, from an expected 5.4% this year.

For the budget bill, the premier must compromise with demands for less belt-tightening from the lawmakers he depends on to remain in power. Socialists voted to topple former premier Francois Bayrou over his plan to narrow the deficit to 4.6% of economic next year, while Lecornu has warned France’s credibility with markets is at stake and the target must not be wider than 5%.

The prime minister must also reckon with Socialist demands to impose a wealth tax and take apart Macron’s 2023 pension law that raised the minimum retirement age. In the hung parliament, the group’s lawmakers wield an outsized influence as their abstentions in no-confidence votes can allow bills to pass.

Speaking on Friday before Lecornu’s appointment, Socialist leader Olivier Faure said his party would decide whether to vote to oust the new government once it knows the policies.

"If it’s not possible to amend the budget, if all the issues are not on the table, of course we will have no other choice but to censure,” Faure said. "We don’t want chaos, we are not looking for dissolution whatever the cost, but we are not scared of it either.”